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Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Why Food & Water Shouldn’t be Your #1 Priority

The Ready Store has a great article on being prepared. Most of the article is below, make sure to check their site to see all of it and the comments about it.

Most people when they try to make a go at getting ready on their own are initially inclined to start by stocking food. Once they start to get a nice little supply of food they then transition to a supply of water and then additional tools and supplies. There’s nothing wrong with this if your preparation is well ahead of the disaster and you get everything ready before you need to use it.

So if Food & Water aren’t the first priority, what is?

The first priority in an emergency situation is The Ability to Think Clearly. First and foremost you must have the right mindset. Everything else takes a back seat.

Case in point, when me and my wife are going to take the family somewhere, what’s the first thing we do when we get the kids in the car? That’s right, we make sure every one of them is safely secured in a car seat, booster and seatbelt. Why do we do this? Because we’ve seen and observed from other’s experience that should an accident occur while we’re driving, the greatest likelihood for our children to survive is if their secured.

Knock on wood, I’ve never been in a car accident with my children, and we’ve driven thousands of miles. Is it then safe to assume that since I’ve never been in an accident over the last 10 years there’s really no reason to buckle in the kids?

Of course not. We do this because despite a solid past driving record, there’s still a risk that comes with driving and the trade off of the time it takes to putting my kids in a seat belt is worth the extra safety and security it provides.

This type of mindset is crucial to insuring you and your family’s safety in a disaster. Despite the fact that you may have never faced a true emergency situation in the past, you’re not justified in not taking the time to “put the kids in a seat belt”. I guarantee that getting ready will be worth the trade off.

Prioritize the list in the order of not just likelihood, but in the order of what you’re going to actually commit to prepare for.

Make A Plan.

Plans can be tricky because more often than not, things don’t go exactly as planned. However, a plan serves the purpose of developing the right mindset. Through out the planning process, you become educated and gain a better grasp of both the options you have available and the supplies you’ll need to carry out your plan.

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-Richard

Welcome to the BLOG

After an on-going discussion with my family and neighbors I decided it would be nice to have a place where we could post thoughts, ideas, and helpful hints.

Since I am LDS, I thought it would be advantageous to reference the Provident Living website as often as possible. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has done a wonderful job in putting together a really helpful and useful site.

You will see my posts as Flat Tail Chef, this is the Mountain Man name given to me by my fellow Rendezvous staffers. So don't be surprised if my posts lean toward dutch oven cooking and that sort of thing.